Traveling to Uganda / Orientation

So we have a lot to share with you all since our last entry. We are now officially in Jinja, Uganda, which we are glad to call home. It was a LONG journey traveled to get to Uganda. We flew out of Colorado Springs on Saturday August, 30th at 7:30am to Chicago, then Washington DC, a seven hour flight to Brussels, Belgium, where we found out that our flight had been delayed for 24 hours due to some sort of mechanical issues. Absolutely exhausted, our team decided to tour downtown Brussels, before going to bed in the nice hotel that Brussels Air put us up in. We all enjoyed Belgian waffles, the beautiful architecture, and a relaxing atmosphere. Sadly though, we were all like walking zombies due to jetlag. We were only able to walk around town for a couple of hours.

Thankfully after a great night of rest we were ready to go on the longest leg of our trip, an eight-hour flight. We departed Brussels on Monday, September 1st, around 10:40am for Bujumbura, Burundi. After a short layover, we finally got on our last plane to Entebbe, Uganda, which landed around 10:40pm that night. We can’t explain what a relief it was to finally be here. And we praise God for his protection and provision. After five flights a delayed piece of luggage was the only complication in our entire trip. It was quite a journey!!!!

After dealing with the lost luggage, we were happily greeted by some of the eMi staff of Uganda, who drove our team an hour to Kampala, Uganda where we were able to get a good night’s rest. For the next three days we then had part of our “in country” orientation in Kampala. We toured around the capital using the crazy transportation, learning more specifically about the Ugandan culture and eMi’s Kampala office. We even were able to speak a bit of Luganda with the nationals. Thankfully a lot of people here speak English, but a number of words are mixed with Lugandan (Another national language). It was a lot of fun! We were the ‘crazy’ Muzungus-the name many Ugandans use for Caucasian people.

We are now in Jinja, Uganda, which is our final destination. We arrived here Thursday, September 4th. We will post another update in the coming days about our experience thus far in Jinja. Internet access here is limited, and only available at the office so we will post updates, as we are able.

Prayer Requests
Please praise God with us that we arrived in Jinja safely.

Praise God for the work that he has before us. We are very excited. We found out on Friday more details on what we will be doing. In our next update we will include more details about the work we will be doing while we are in Uganda.

Please pray for our family during this time. We found out 2 hours ago that Amy (Our sister) miscarried her baby boy early Saturday morning. It is very hard to be away from family during this time. We were able to talk with them and they are trusting the Lord through this time. The baby’s given name is Zain Oliver Hernandez.

Please pray for the people of the ministry we are partnering with here in Jinja (Arise Africa International). We just found out that the vice president of the ministry, Lillian, just died. We don’t know details, but we will keep you posted as they come available.

Please also pray for Janet, one of eMi’s staff members in Kampala. She is in the process of recovering from malaria.